Fourteen Pulsars
by BK the irregular
Summary: Lies can come true, but uncertainty remains. (Probable AU, spoilers for Galactica 2003 mini-series)


Fourteen Pulsars  
  
BK the irregular  
  
disclaimer: All characters used without permission and not for profit.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Baltar expected Roslin and Adama to react with a sigh of relief, with smiles, maybe with an exclamation of joy.  
  
Instead, the two people responsible for the future of humanity, the President of the Colonies and the Commander of the Galactica, are staring at him with open-mouthed expressions of shock.  
  
Roslin is the first to recover her voice. "Play it again, Doctor."  
  
Baltar rewinds the tape he has recorded from the golden disk, and plays the previous fifteen seconds again. The language is unfamiliar, the tone distorted, as though a child were saying it, but the last word is unmistakable.  
  
"There are fifty-five discrete spoken statements on the disk, each one apparently in a different language. In addition, the disk's creators encoded one hundred fifteen images on the disk ... some giving mathematical and scientific principles, some showing images of the ... the people who constructed the probe. And their world."  
  
Adama looks at the bundle of photographs in his hand, at the diagrams, at the people - the human beings - whose images Baltar has drawn from the golden disk in his laboratory. "And you're telling me ... that the planet they come from is Earth."  
  
Baltar recognizes the disbelief in Adama's voice - surprising, coming from the man who, years ago, stood before the mourning masses and declared that he knew where Earth was - and begins to worry. "I'm not simply saying it, Commander. But you have to admit that the evidence is rather overwhelming. A probe is found in deep space by one of our scouts, containing this disk, instructions on its cover for how to recover its information, and that information shows pictures of its creators - obviously human - and examples of their languages, one of which clearly contains the word 'Earth'. What other possible explanation is there?"  
  
Adama sets down the photographs and runs a hand along the round gold case which held the disc, etched with the instructions which have shown Baltar how to recover its information. Roslin walks over and taps a starburst etching on the case with a finger. "That's not an instruction, is it?"  
  
"It's a map," Baltar answers. "Each one of those fourteen lines represents-"  
  
"-pulsars," Adama interrupts. "Same way we navigated deep space in the old days. Find three or four known pulsars, you can triangulate and pinpoint your location." He turns to the President. "A pulsar's basically a neutron star with a rapid rate of spin, and an electromagnetic hot-spot on its surface-"  
  
"I know," Roslin says, and closes her eyes. "I was a teacher once upon a time. So if we find those pulsars ... we find Earth?"  
  
"Precisely, Madam President." Baltar looks her in the eyes, shocked at how her skin is drawn tight around her face - by now it's an open secret that she's been stricken by disease, that she's being consumed from the inside out, and she's battling to hold humanity together at the same time she's fighting to stay alive ... but there is still a look of disbelief in her eyes.  
  
He probes. "At the very least, we can check this map against the known coordinates of Earth. We may need to account for some stellar drift, or errors in navigation."  
  
Adama flinches, but composes himself rapidly. "I'll see to it, of course."  
  
"They don't believe," a sultry voice whispers in his ear - hot breath on his cheek, cool hand stroking the back of his neck. "It's all a lie to them. They've been lying to all of them."  
  
Number Six. Perfect, Baltar curses inwardly. Just when he thought he was finally rid of the Cylon, the fracking mechanical harlot chooses *now* to reassert herself.  
  
"They lied to you," she hisses in his ear. "You don't owe them a thing."  
  
Baltar hisses, "It's true." He grips the golden case. "It's real."  
  
"Doctor?" Roslin calls out to him, and Baltar flinches himself, swearing silently at having spoken his retort to Number Six aloud.  
  
"I'm sorry. Just ... it's still a little overwhelming sometimes."  
  
"I know," Roslin says calmly. "Even in the old days, this probe would be an exciting find," she continues, looking at the alien structure on one of the monitors. "Just knowing for a fact that the thirteenth colony really existed. But now ... this is our salvation. Or deliverance, if that's a better word."  
  
Salvation. Deliverance. Religious words, terms of faith ... the sort of faith that Baltar only ever saw in a machine. "We have to keep this quiet," he blurts out.  
  
"Quiet? Why?" the President retorts. "This is the greatest discovery in our history. Short of finding Kobol itself, it's the greatest thing that could possibly have happened to us."  
  
"And if the Cylons find out, what then?" Baltar responds. "If there's a Raider out there, and it picks up on a wireless transmission?" He taps the center of the pulsar map. "We may get there only to find a dozen Cylon basestars busy turning Earth into a lifeless ball of glass."  
  
Adama nods slowly. "He's right. We keep this close. I'll have the navigators plot pulsars, but we won't broadcast this out in the open until we're ready to make that last jump. Strictly word-of-mouth."  
  
"Agreed," the President concurs. "Doctor, how long will it take to determine the characteristics of the pulsars we'll need to find?"  
  
"Not long, I hope," Baltar answers. "I'll just need to check the calculations, measure out the angles more precisely ... I'll have images of the pulsar map prepared for both of you, just in case of a ... mishap."  
  
"Then we won't delay you further," Adama says. The Commander and the President take their leave of Baltar, turn to go-  
  
"You didn't believe, did you, Commander? In Earth, I mean."  
  
Adama turns back and pins Baltar with his eyes. "Does it matter?"  
  
Baltar wilts. "I suppose not. Not now. Not now that we know for sure."  
  
"That's what matters now," Adama says with a hint of force in his voice, and follows the President out the door.  
  
Baltar turns to his work, burying himself in calculations based on the ones and zeroes on the case, and the images he's pulled from the disk itself. He feels Number Six hovering close to him, and begins to hum tonelessly to try and block her out.  
  
"Is it from Earth?"  
  
He realizes with a start that it wasn't the Cylon's voice, but that of the scout pilot who rescued him so long ago ... Valtane? Valone? His eyes snap up and catch the name tag on her flight suit: Valerii. The young pilot they all call Boomer.  
  
"What gave you that idea, Lieutenant?" he asks, striving to be polite while deflecting the conversation.  
  
"Scuttlebutt. Word travels fast," she answers. Baltar opens his mouth to retort that nothing travels this fast, but then realizes from a glance at his chronometer that he's been at work for hours.  
  
"It's ... quite possible," he says, hedging.  
  
Boomer walks up to the workbench and holds out a reverent hand to the disk case. "This is it?"  
  
"That's the case for the message disk, yes. I'm still trying to decipher its contents."  
  
She looks at the surface, brushing a finger against the pulsar map. "I hope it is. I really do."  
  
"So do I," Baltar says easily. "I just hope I can do a proper job."  
  
"If it is," Boomer says, and then stops. Baltar is suddenly more aware than ever that he is only here, alive, on the Galactica because her co-pilot, her friend, stayed behind on Caprica to die.  
  
"If it is," she says again, "then it was worth it."  
  
"I hope I can justify your friend's choice," Baltar says, and means it, reminding himself that the accolades will come, that it's only a matter of time before the Galactica jumps to a place called Earth. "We'll need time to be certain of anything, of course."  
  
"There's time," Boomer says. "And for what it's worth ... I think Helo would be proud right now."  
  
Helo? Of course ... the sacrifice. "Thank you," Baltar answers, and turns back to the disk. "But if you'll excuse me, there's still a lot of work to do."  
  
Boomer apologizes, but Baltar is already back at work.  
  
"There may be less time than you think," Number Six cooes in his ear. "What makes you think that you found the only probe they ever sent out?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Baltar hisses.  
  
Number Six reaches past him to point at a monitor, showing the side of the probe, and some sort of writing prominently displayed on a metal plate. A series of glyphs bunched together into a word, and then another glyph stood off to the right of the word.  
  
"You've seen that glyph before, haven't you?"  
  
Baltar racks his brain, then grabs for the image-reproductions that were encoded on the golden disk. He turns past the calibrating circle that was the first image ... past a reproduction of the pulsar map on the second image with a photo of the Galaxy showing what Baltar can only assume is a version of a "you are here" sign ... to the third image, a series of simple mathematical concepts.  
  
And suddenly he understands.  
  
The off-set glyph on the side of the probe is its builders' symbol for the number *two*.  
  
fin  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
author's note: The curious may want to check out voyager.jpl.nasa.gov and click on "Golden Record: Earth's Greeting to the Universe" to see what the fuss is about. 


End file.
